Fear
by catycat010
Summary: This came to me after listening to this song off of the TV show NCIS's soundtrack. It's stream of consciousness, Harry's POV, postOotP. Not for those readers looking for a happy story, though the ending is not completely hopeless. Rated just to be safe.


Disclaimer: I do not own the Harry Potter characters, events, or universe in any way. They belong to J.K. Rowling and Warner Brothers. I also do not own the lyrics for the song Fear, by Stop Making Friends (Pauley Paulette).

I found this song on the soundtrack for the television show NCIS, and loved it! This came to me while listening to the soundtrack online, while reading Harry Potter fanfiction. It is a sort of stream of consciousness of Harry's, postOotP.

On with the story...

**Are you scared of the dark**

**Are you afraid they'll break your heart**

**Are you afraid you'll lose yourself**

**Are you afraid of your own health**

The nights were the worst. The doubts, the fear, the anguish, everything he tried to hide from the others, from himself, during the day took over as he lay in bed, dreading sleep.

He feared they would leave him. Either through choice, after they realized how dangerous he was, or through being taken from him. Just like his parents, Cedric, and Sirius.

He feared that he was not strong enough to hold on to hope, to love, to everything he had been told was his strength, his greatest power. He felt adrift in the sea of agony and sorrow and fear, and didn't know how to hold on anymore.

Every night seemed to destroy a little bit more of him. Every night, a part of him died, and he woke every morning more broken than he had been the previous night.

**Are you scared to lose**

**Are you afraid to choose**

**Are you afraid you'll win**

**Are you scared of your own sin**

How could he choose between the choices he had in front of him? To kill? Or to be killed? What kind of choice was that?

He feared being killed. Not because he feared death itself, but because he knew what his death would mean for them. For everyone left. For those he had not yet lost.

But he likewise feared killing. How was he supposed to live with that choice? Being a killer? No matter what everyone else said, he knew he would not be able to live with himself if he killed. If he stooped to Tom's level.

But hadn't he already started to sink to Tom's level? He had already used one Unforgivable, no matter that it didn't work. He didn't want to use another- to see that verdant green light, and know he was responsible for it. That he cast it himself.

**Are you scared to forgive**

**Are you afraid to live**

**Are you afraid to die**

**Do you think you told a lie**

He knew what he would have to do in order to have a chance to take on Tom and kill him. He would have to forgive those who had wronged him, time and time again, those who had betrayed his trust, "for the greater good." He didn't know if he had the strength to forgive anyone anymore. He had lost too much, and had hurt too much.

Was he strong enough to keep on fighting and living? Was he strong enough to face death and accept it? He wasn't sure anymore.

His life was a lie: everyone expected him to bounce back from every setback, and he let them believe he did. He let everyone delude themselves into thinking he was ok.

But he wasn't ok. He'd never been ok.

**To live**

**When you think you're dying**

**To laugh**

**When you feel like crying**

**To stand**

**When you think you're gonna fall**

**It's just fear after all**

**It's only fear after all**

Was he strong enough to keep going on, when the agony and sorrow were overwhelming him, slowly killing him?

Was he strong enough to smile and put on a brave face for his friends? For the few people left he cared about? Could he joke, and laugh, and smile, when all he wanted to was curl up into a ball and cry and hide from the world?

Could he stand up against his burdens, and not let anyone see how he wanted to break, to give in and give up?

He was so afraid, and he didn't know how to face his fears. There were just too many. He couldn't cope.

**Are you afraid you'll be alone**

**Are you scared to pick up the phone**

**Are you scared of the past**

**Do you think that you might crash**

There were times though, when he wanted to stay lying on that bed, halfway between wakefulness and sleep, in the place where no more loss could reach him. Where no one else could leave him behind.

He dreaded getting post, and reading the paper. How many more people he knew would he find out had died? How many more people would he fail with his inaction?

There were times when everything he had seen, had felt, had experienced came crashing down on him, and he drowned under the weight of his past. Of all his failures.

Was there any end to this pain, this sorrow, this fear? Or was he fated to stay on this course of loss and suffering, until it took everything out of him? Took everything he had and left him broken in pieces that no magic spell could repair.

**Do you think you're in too deep**

**Are you afraid to sleep**

**Are you scared there's no stability**

**Are you afraid of your own fragility**

It was all too much. If he had known what awaited him when Hagrid came to get him in that god-forsaken shack by the sea all those years ago… he doubted he would have accepted.

Of course, he was assuming he would have had the choice to refuse in the first place, which he doubted. He didn't get to make choices for himself- they were made for him, because that's all he was- a weapon. A tool, of fate, and of petty, prejudiced, self-serving, weak-minded idiots.

And overly manipulative lemon-drop lovers with half-moon spectacles.

His whole life- no, not life: existence- his whole existence was one test after another. Nothing was a certainty, except for his suffering.

And his failures.

He wasn't strong enough for this. He was broken, far beyond repair, but no one wanted to admit that, so they kept forcing him through these trials, and every time, he broke a little more.

How much was left?

Not much, that was for sure.

**To live**

**When you think you're dying**

**To laugh**

**When you feel like crying**

**To stand**

**When you think you're gonna fall**

**It's just fear after all**

**It's only fear after all**

Life held no joys for him any longer, but death wasn't looking all that great either. What awaited him on the other side? Probably more loss, and heartache, as those who he had lost already realized the extent of his failures. They would be ashamed of him, and that meant death held more sorrow and loneliness for him.

He tried to think back to happier days. To first year, when he still believed in goodness and hope and happiness. When he still foolishly believed things would get better for him. When he could still laugh and smile for real, not just fake it as he did now.

He couldn't dredge up any happiness, and he was now beginning to struggle to even dredge up sorrow and tears. He felt numb and cold. Like a Dementor was always around.

He was stumbling more and more now. He could barely stand anymore. He couldn't keep going.

**To mend**

**When you're think you're breaking**

**To strength**

**When you know you're shaking**

**To pray**

**When your back's against the wall**

**It's only fear after all**

Time after time, everyone expected him to pick himself back up when he fell. To put himself back together. But he had broken into too many pieces now. Like Humpty Dumpty, no one would be able to put him back together.

What was supposed to be his strength? Love? He didn't know what love was. He had never learned- every time he had gotten close, it had been snatched away from him.

And he was left, alone, scared, and shaking like a toddler in a thunderstorm without parents to run to.

When he was younger, he used to pray to his parents, begging them to come and save him.

"_I'll be good, I promise. I won't eat too much, and I'll be really quiet. I promise."_

But he had learned that no matter how hard he prayed, no one would answer him. He was trapped, and alone.

And that scared him. More than he wanted to admit, even to himself.

**Are you scared of the end**

**Are you scared to begin**

**Are you scared of the start**

**Do you think they'll break your heart**

**Do you think they'll break your heart**

He often thought of what was going to happen if he faced Tom. He was sure he would fall, but he was afraid he would leave Tom free to kill everyone else, unopposed.

How could he win? How could he even fight him to a stalemate, or to both their deaths?

Where was he supposed to start learning enough, training enough, to kill the worst Dark Lord in centuries? It's not like there was a manual for that sort of thing.

He would have to start by letting others in. But if he did that, they would hurt him. They'd break him more and more, because they'd leave. Just like everyone else.

**To live**

**When you think you're dying**

**To laugh**

**When you feel like crying**

**To stand**

**When you think you're gonna fall**

**It's just fear after all**

**It's only fear after all**

He lay on the bed, trying to dredge up the strength to do something. Anything. To choose whether to keep going, or to end it. To dredge up any emotion at all, to reassure himself he was still there, still capable of the most basic emotions.

He had to choose. To stand and face his fate, his destiny, or crumble to dust.

But he was afraid to choose. He was so very afraid.

**It's only fear**

**The only fear is fear itself**

**The only fear is fear itself**

**The only fear is fear itself**

But wasn't fear an emotion? Didn't the fact that he felt afraid prove that he was still alive?

Then he had made the first step.

**It's only fear**

And, as the saying goes, the first step is the hardest.


End file.
